NYPD 66th Precinct Honors 100th Anniversary Of Officer Shot On Duty

By Idy Perl

The NYPD 66th Precinct held a remembrance ceremony for Detective Bernardino Grottano, an officer who was shot in the line of duty 100 years ago. 

Known as Detective Barney, the officer was shot on May 19th, 1924, while trying to stop a robbery. It was around 10:30PM when another officer, Martin Stapleton, realized that the counter in a cigar shop was unsupervised. He was about to enter the shop to investigate further when a crook stationed as the look-out for the robbery noticed him and drew a handgun on the officer. Stapleton lunged at the perp, who quickly fled on foot, right past Detective Grottano, who was off-duty and standing at the corner of the street. 

Grottano had witnessed the events and threw himself at the perp to try and stop him but missed and fell instead. Grottano and Stapleton took off chasing the criminal and fired a few shots in his direction. The perp returned fire at them, injuring Stapleton in the arm and landing a shot in Grottano’s chest. Grottano was taken to the hospital and died from his injury a week later, on May 26. 

The NYPD honored him in a 100th-anniversary ceremony at his grave in Greenwood Cemetery, where a new headstone was placed.